“They’re concerned parents and there are school rules,” he began.
“It was just a joke!”
Marissa had come a long way from being sanguine about the senior boys being expelled to out-and-out alarm. She’d fully adopted the general feeling of all her classmates: that the parents were crazy freak-outers just looking to jump off the deep end. Also, she had been particularly interested in several of the perpetrators: Tyler Stapleton, Troy Stillwell, and the kid who’d pushed Harley, Greer Douglas, Dug Douglas’s son.
Earlier, Robbie had said of Greer, “Branch of the same tree.”
Cooper didn’t know the boy himself, but he knew Dug, who’d taken over his dad’s auto and home insurance business, with satellite offices in River Glen and several other Portland bedroom communities. Dug and his wife, who lived in a sprawling home in Staffordshire Estates, had twice been reported for disturbances by the neighbors; they had a tendency to have screaming fights when they’d had too much to drink.
Cooper took Marissa home, and Laura was already waiting outside. He could tell she wanted to talk, but he waved her off and went to the station. There was limited administrative staff after-hours, while two officers worked nights with others on call, if need be, so he was alone except for Howie and the small group of assembled upset parents looking for police action.
Howie was on his feet as Cooper entered, ready to bolt. “You got this?” he said, and Cooper nodded somewhat tiredly. The posse of parents were furious that the boys had been released to their parents’ custody at the school.
“They should all be in jail,” one woman declared. Edina Something. This had been her mantra from the beginning.
He spent the next hour listening to Edina, Caroline, and a woman named Marty, and her husband, Hal, complain vociferously about the boys involved in the incident, the school’s lack of discipline, the deplorable state of the country’s youth, and the problem with lack of respect in the world as a whole. He wrote down notes about the boys and tried to look attentive. He didn’t offer any advice, and as the four of them wound down, Edina, short, sturdy, with a fierce look in her eye, who seemed to be the self-appointed head of their group, asked suspiciously, “You’re not going to do anything, are you?”
Cooper pretended to think that over. It occurred to him that a fair amount of his job was acting. “They’re minors. The ‘weapon’ they brought onto school property is a prop for a costume.”
“They pushed that girl off the stage!” Marty reminded on a gasp.
Cooper nodded. “She was caught by a number of kids who had their hands up, ready to catch her. It was planned. I’m not saying it’s—”
“It’s a conspiracy!” Twin flags of color rode high in Edina’s cheeks.
Hal, a voice of reason Cooper learned, reminded his wife, “One of those kids was ours.”
Marty burst into tears and Edina sucked in her lips, as if she’d tasted something bad. “So, you’ll do nothing?”
“I’m going to let the school make the decisions,” said Cooper, which satisfied none of them, but at least he got a nod of agreement from Hal.
“You’ve got my formal complaint,” Edina said, pointing at the form she’d filled out.
Cooper nodded.
Caroline, who’d taken in the whole debate, but had said nothing, lingered after the other three trooped out the door. While Hal looking back dolefully at Cooper as he pushed through the exit door, clearly already over the whole debacle, Caroline asked Cooper, “Do you have a number where I can reach you, just in case I need to?”
Cooper flashed on how he’d shown himself to be receptive to her earlier. He could have kicked himself now. What had he been trying to prove? That he wasn’t interested in Jamie? That he just needed to meet other women? He saw that Caroline may have used this excuse to keep their earlier connection alive. Somewhat reluctantly, he gave out his cell phone number, though he tried to press upon her that it was best to reach him at the station. He could have denied her, but that felt like it would be inordinately rude, especially after he’d acted interested earlier.
After she’d gone, Cooper picked up said cell phone and scrolled through it for Jamie’s number, which he’d gotten from Marissa before he’d dropped her off. She’d made him swear on her life that he wouldn’t call Jamie and tell her about Harley and her being pushed off the stage, so he wouldn’t, but he was going to follow up later to make sure Jamie eventually got the straight story.
* * *
Jamie sat at the small kitchen table in Camryn’s condo, feeling tensions slip away as her old friend regaled her with stories about friends of theirs from high school. Camryn, whose hair was cut in a short, blondish bob and who always seemed to wear a smile, was an aide at the grade school and was in contact with lots of their schoolmates through their kids. Only a few of them had high school kids like Jamie. Camryn said, “Dug Douglas, Icky Vicky, and, well, Cooper, sort of. Some others, I think, but mostly the parents have grade-schoolers or no children at all, like me.”
Camryn had moved to Portland after college and married an older man with kids who’d been in high school. They’d divorced about four years earlier, and she’d ended up with enough money to buy her condo outright with enough left over to make it easy for her to support herself. “I should do like you and become a teacher. I like it. I like being around the kids. I probably should have had children when I could.”
“It’s not too late, is it?” Jamie asked. Camryn tried to refill her cup of decaf coffee, but Jamie waved her off. She’d laid out a plate of assorted crackers and cheese, and Jamie, who’d managed half a
